John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

TruthOut: Report: Victoria Law: Public Prisons, Private Profits

If there is just one thing that shouldn't be under for-profit companies, it would be prisons and other corrections facilities like jails. Let me amend that, the military, law enforcement and corrections. The idea that people can make money off of someone's incarceration, is disgusting to me. I don't think I would want to be eating and thinking about that at the same time. I don't care how efficient private prisons are. We are still talking about human lives here in inmates who deserve to be treated as such while they are doing their time.

Private prisons are very profitable business's that make billions off of the backs of taxpayers and a lot of struggling taxpayers like in Arizona. And one way they do that is by putting their inmates to work and paying them practically nothing. As public prisons are fighting state legislatures for money they need in order to just stay afloat and have the resources that they need to run their overcrowded facilities. They put these inmates to work and barely pay them. Instead of hiring outside work to do the work that is necessary to smoothly operate the prisons. And collect the profits as a result.

Prisons are overcrowded and obviously expensive especially when economic times are tough and budgets are tight. Bt whatever money that might be saved in the short-term from private prisons, comes off the back of inmates in those facilities that do the work to keep those prisons in business. Which is exactly what they are and come off of the bad backs of struggling taxpayers who struggle just to pay their bill everyday. And into the wallets of these corporations.